One Step Closer
by HelloAlexander
Summary: When OC Darian Avery starts tracking the Winchesters, bent on revenge, things don't go exactly as she expected it to. Possible spoilers. (Disclaimer - All characters and/or events pertaining to Supernatural do not belong to me.)
1. Prologue

Prologue

So, I have this theory. It's not one of those theories that need to be proven right because it'll change the world or anything like that. In fact, I'm not exactly positive it's a theory I want to share. It certainly wasn't one when it first occurred to me. It was entirely for me and was just my own way of dealing with everything that had happened. It was a construct that I figured I had created as my own coping mechanism. It was the result of a series of events I had full intentions of keeping to myself. I figured it was another one of those things that I'd hold on to, never letting anyone see the scars it left on me. But every time I drive down an empty dirt road just a little too fast, or pass by a classic car that's been given just a little too much love, I remember it all over again. My heart skips a beat. That familiar feeling of emptiness washes over me. That all-too-familiar loneliness. And it's then that I remember that it isn't my series of events at all. It's ours. And he deserves to have it shared.

My theory is that everyone's lives are a series of stories just waiting to be told. Whether it be a story of that one time you embarrassed yourself at the bank, or the story of the day your first little girl was born, every story marks a point of change. It divides our lives into a before and after. But every one of us has one story that stands out above all the others. It's a story which changes us so thoroughly that the before and after seem like two entirely different worlds. This is my story. But my story doesn't belong to just me. It also belongs to him, and everything he did for me. And, for the first time in my life, my story doesn't leave me the victim. He is.

In my story, I'm the villain.

It's my own little version of forever that was built and lost in my small amount of time with him. It seems so long ago now, like the vast expanse between me and that part of my past leaves it unreachable. Unreachable and dreamlike, as if it never really happened, but if there is one thing I am certain of it's that I'll never forget it.

This is the story of my time with Dean Winchester, how he fixed me… and how I broke him.


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter One

There was nothing quite like the heat of an Alabama summer.

The sweltering sun beat down through my small Toyota's windshield with a merciless ferocity, and despite my window being rolled down, my car held onto the formidable heat. No breeze offered to alleviate my suffering, though I'd been begging for one to arise for the past hour. The weather had taken no notice, and my temptation to start the car for the relief of the A/C was mounting. I wouldn't give in though. It would defeat my whole purpose.

This wasn't my first time tracking people, and despite it having been years since I'd last taken to tracking, I somehow knew it wouldn't be the last. I had thought, once, that I'd given it up for good. I had believed that I had found some kind of solace, and a new purpose in my life. That was when I had first met Charlie. She had brought me something I hadn't felt in a long time. She had taken me and sewn my broken pieces back together before she even realised she had done it. But now that she was gone…

I shook my head. No. I wouldn't allow myself to go there again. Not yet, anyway. Not when I was this close. I had to remain on task.

A bead of sweat rolled off my forehead and down the curve of my nose, resettling itself on my upper lip. Again I was struck with the incredible need for the temperature to lighten up, but turning the car on may draw attention to myself. The two guys I was tailing now were pro trackers themselves, if my hard work and perseverance these past weeks had taught me anything. It wouldn't take much for them to notice that _something _was suspicious. I couldn't risk it.

I impatiently wiped the sweat off my brow with the hem of my shirt and looked back across the street. The lot there was occupied by a run-down convenience store; it was the only one in this small, warn out town from my observations. The building looked like it hadn't seen a proper repair man in years. The outer walls were covered inn chipped and weathered paint which had once, presumably, been white. Now it appeared to be more of a mottled grey colour. Well, what was left of the paint was anyway. The front window wasn't much better, with chips and fissures scattered across its surface, hastily repaired with a combination of plastic wrapping and duct tape to ward off unwanted draughts. The door was just clinging to life on its rusted hinges, and as a finishing touch a sign hung above it all from questionable chains, swaying dangerously on its own accord and threatening to plummet to its death whilst crushing any customers that happened to be crossing the store's threshold. "Sullivan's Corner Store" was painted across it in a messy, off-centred scrawl. This is what I got for perusing through so many small towns.

_It isn't even on a damn corner._

None of the stops that these guys had made so far had made any sense to me. They'd led me all over the country; Illinois, Nevada, North Dakota, freaking _Maine, _and now Alabama. Each time they stopped in some old, decrepit town like this one, with some weird-ass name, smack in the middle of bumble-fucking nowhere. There didn't seem to be any connection between them. Well, that wasn't entirely true. Each of the towns was once, rather recently, home to a now-dead bank robber. The robberies had taken place in nearby cities, and each time the money was recovered directly after the robber had committed suicide. It was weird, no doubt. But as far as my research had turned up, these guys were vigilantes of some sort – cleaning up strange cases that the system seemed to overlook. How they fixed things was a mystery to me, but in each case I had uncovered, these guys had gone into a weird case and come back out of it with the town in question never to be bothered again. What would they want to do with crimes that had already been solved?

It didn't matter. None of that mattered at all anymore. What they've done, what they're trying to do, why they're trying to do it all…. None of it. All that mattered now was where they were and what their next move was. Once I understood, I could move in and make my own.

Movement across the street caught my eye and I sat up straighter, suddenly altert. Two men emerged from the building, each of them tall in their own right though one was quite clearly taller than the other. Their relationship to each other was hard to determine. They were similarly built, but there was enough difference between the two of them that they may not, in fact, be blood related at all. It could be coincidence. Whenever they stopped at a cheap motel, the only form of accommodation they ever seemed to seek out, they shared a room between them, so they were obviously closer than simply being work partners. Work partners they clearly were, though. It was the only thing, in fact, that I could be absolutely certain of. They never stayed in one town for too long, and the two of them were dressed in expensive-looking, authoritative suits, the type of which would never be seen in these towns on a regular occasion. They stuck out more than Luna Lovegood in the last Harry Potter movie.

While for the most part the two men didn't share a physical resemblance, with their hair of different shades of brown and their faces made up of different angles and curves, there was something about the two of them that brought me to the conclusion that they were brothers. I couldn't be entirely certain what it was, but it was something about the edge to their jaws or the slight slump to their shoulders. It was as if the two of them had been through a lot together. It was as if they had to make a conscious effort to keep going, or remind themselves that they couldn't give up. At any rate, the two of them were worn out and tired. They had lived hard lives, these two. They'd seen their own share of tragedy.

_Good, _I thought maliciously, drumming my fingers on my steering wheel.

_But not quite good enough. _

I surveyed the two carefully as they piled into the black '67 Chevy Impala and slowly turned my key in the ignition. My Toyota quickly jumped to life, raring to go, the noise of the engine barely interrupting the silence I had grown so accustom to. A burst of cold air hit my face, but the change in temperature I had been wishing for barely even registered as I watched the Impala reverse out of its parking spot. My fingers automatically moved to my throat, landing on a small pendant that rested there – a flat, silver object that was clearly only half of a hole: the left half of a bat that read "Robin."

"This is for you, Batman," I whispered, my eyes following the Impala as it turned onto the road.

I threw my car in drive and slowly followed, keeping enough distance behind to remain inconspicuous. The Impala began to shrink in my view as the distance between us grew larger, but that was no problem. If there was one thing that Charlie had taught me, it was that most anything could be solved with technology and the right mind using it. I reached over and fiddled with a GPS system I had in the car's front console. Another car's route came up on the map, leaving dark purple trail behind it as the device mapped the brothers' progress. I peeled my eyes away from the screen and returned them to the empty, country road, smirking to myself. The right technology, the right mind, and anything was possible.

"This is for you."


End file.
